The town of Edgartown and Martha’s Vineyard Commission have won the right to participate in legal proceedings on the Cape Wind project.

The decision, made earlier this month by the Massachusetts Energy Facilities siting board, gives the town and commission a sort of legal watchdog status. Both entities have limited participant status which means they can file comments on a tentative decision and write a brief at the end of the hearing, but they will not have the right to appeal the final decision.

There are eight full-fledged parties intervening in the case, including the towns of Yarmouth and Barnstable, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and the Cape Cod Commission. Edgartown or the Vineyard commission can participate at any point if either decides their interests are not adequately represented by these parties.

Town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport is representing the town of Edgartown and attorney Mark Lanza represents the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

Cape Wind is a private project backed by developer Jim Gordon to build 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. Cabling for the project would come ashore in West Yarmouth. Last fall the Cape Cod Commission denied the land transmission portion of the Cape Wind project. The commission has the power to review that portion of the project as a development of regional impact.

The two petitions, which were filed last month, followed an Islandwide public hearing on the project held in March.

The Edgartown petition links the concerns of Edgartown, the commission and other towns on the Cape.

When the siting board approved the cabling for the project in 2005, the Cape Cod Commission argued that its own status as a permitting authority in the area was undermined. The Martha’s Vineyard Commission, a state agency that was the model for the Cape Cod Commission, argues that the decision sets a precedent that affects its own legal status. And since it is established to protect the Vineyard, this is also the concern of Edgartown.

Furthermore, towns through which the cabling would pass contend that their power to issue permits may be eroded by a precedent set by the siting board’s decision. Therefore, Edgartown is also participating to protect its interests as a local permitting authority.

Both the Cape Cod commission and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound have also filed motions for the siting board to consider the validity of the project as a whole, taking into account a perceived threat to fisheries. As a fishing town, Edgartown shares these concerns.

Though the proceedings do not substantively deal with the merits of the project, Edgartown selectmen officially took a position back in March. Representing the board Margaret Serpa, then chairman, spoke against the project, calling it a “senseless act of destruction.”

Some argue that the siting board should rule on both the wind farm and cabling portions of the project. Representatives of the Cape Wind project argue that the siting board should rule only on the cabling portion, since the proposed site for the wind farms is entirely in federal waters. Still others argue that the siting board should not rule on any part of the project.

The next step is to consider these various arguments, though no schedule is currently in place, according to Kathryn Sedor, the presiding officer in the case for the siting board.

The siting board is effectively judging itself by deciding on the extent of its own jurisdiction. Whatever decision it makes may be appealed by any party, which means the matter will likely end up in court, further delaying a decision on the project.